Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Good news for recovering addicts

Conventional wisdom says that drug or alcohol addicts can
only kick their habits by abstaining from ever consuming their drug of choice
again. It seems that addiction counselors aren’t getting that memo. Alan Davis
and Harold Rosenberg of Bowling Green State University interviewed 913 members
of the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Counselors, and
found that roughly half of them would feel comfortable telling some of their
clients that it’s okay to imbibe now and then.

First, it’s important to note that the counselors
distinguished between levels of addiction. For example, there’s a distinction
between ‘abuse’ and ‘dependence’. People who abuse drugs may get into trouble
with their bosses or loved ones, but they usually don’t suffer from withdrawal
symptoms like dependent people. Second, the counselors took into consideration
which particular drug or drugs were being abused.

Overall, about half the counselors were somewhat or
completely comfortable telling at least some of their clients that strict
abstinence was not necessary. The percentage depended on the degree of addiction,
the drug or drugs of choice and whether the continued drug use was to be
considered temporary or permanent. About 15% of counselors felt that even
drug-dependent people could safely view non-abstinence as a final goal.

One important caveat is that this study did not evaluate
outcomes. In other words, we don’t know from these results whether the
counselors were right or wrong in allowing their clients to continue to use
their substances. On the other hand, the authors suggest that telling drug addicts that they may not have to completely abstain from drug usage could make
treatment more palatable. Just getting more people into treatment programs may
be a net benefit even if some people
relapse.

Stochastic Scientist? What's up with that?

Why the Stochastic Scientist? As I'm sure you all know, 'stochastic' is another word for 'random', which is what I intend for the focus of this blog. Although my formal training is as a molecular biologist, there are many other fields of science that are also fascinating and beautiful. It's my intention to blog about which ever scientific discovery or invention catches my, and hopefully your, fancy.

I also hope to inspire people to learn more about science. By choosing among a huge variety of scientific endeavors, I'll undoubtably hit upon something that will pique my readers' interest.

I guess I could have called my blog 'The Joy of Science', but that wouldn't have been quite so random.